Considering India’s performance in the recently concluded Olympics and Paralympics where we bagged 7 and 19 medals respectively indicates that the Indian sporting ecosystem is in the right direction but as they say there is always room for improvement so here in this report we will sit back and analyze about the steps that needs to be taken to grow Indian sporting ecosystem so that more fans can be engaged either they are watching the game live or sitting in front of their idiot box.
No one can deny in the last 2-3 years the pandemic has impacted all major industries and the sports industry is no different but what this pandemic did to us it made us realize that buying expensive things to create your self-image is not as important than taking care of your health and be grateful to each other. Apart from this lesson which most of us have learned in pandemic one thing which has kept all of us engaged is a digital platform be it Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, or Zoom Call in some way or other we were hooked to these platforms during that difficult period. Let us reveal few methods to you through which we engage more fans in Indian Sporting Ecosystem.
*Better use of the digital platform: Digital platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and Tumblr are the best ways to engage fans in today’s world, and considering this medium in mind all the respective sports federations like AIFF, BAI, WFI and others can upload videos like Behind the scenes of some of the top players like Sunil Chhetri, Bajarang Punia, Neeraj Chopra and PV Sindhu which will increase curiosity among fans. Videos of their interviews along with some of the footage of dressing room talks can be shared on digital platform to engage fans. The reason why I haven’t mentioned cricket here as the game is extremely popular and it’s high time that stature of other sports in India should grow at the same level as Cricket. Digital media boxes need to be created as we do in IPL where fans are invited to watch the game live from the stadium where they are sitting in a digital box and cheering for their favorite team.
*Creating more leagues and upscaling the quality of Indian Sports: Yes you heard it correct more leagues like IPL,ISL,PKL and PBL are needed in other sports too to divert the attention of youth towards these games and Bollywood celebrities should own teams in different leagues too so that some of their fans can come to stadiums to support those teams for e.g KKR fans are driven to stadiums to support their players but at the same time they come to cheer for Shahrukh Khan who is the co-owner of the franchise and the other way which will direct fans to visit stadium is upscaling the quality of sports for e.g in a sports like Football in India we tend to see our players lack attacking approach and they become too defensive so in that case proper coaches should be appointed at the grassroot level who can inculcate this approach from young age to these players as quality is everything if you don’t bring quality in a match and doesn’t back those quality with result no one will be bothered to spent their hard earn money to purchase a ticket and visit a football stadium to watch a game.
* Marketing Sports in a better way: If any Indian federation wants a blueprint of how they need to market their sports they don’t need to go abroad they have an example in the form of BCCI who being a private entity has done a tremendous marketing job to popularize the sports in the country and the reason we often see Test matches being held at Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities so that the game of cricket generates interest from those areas too who don’t good sporting facilities. This is something other federation needs to work on they have to develop their leagues to top-level entity unlike IPL along with it they need to bring the best overseas talent to participate in that league so that Indian budding players who share the dressing room with that top-class overseas players can develop a better understanding of the game.
* Gaming and E-Sports Integration: E-Sports is a growing market in India and it is expected that it will reach a market size of INR 11 Billion by 2025. The growth of E-Sports in India mainly skyrocketed during pandemic times where people were locked inside their houses and had nothing to do the ones who love gaming started streaming games on their official Youtube channel and games like Call of Duty, Counter-Strike and FIFA where fans started watching those live streams and then creating their own channel where they also started streaming. We do see a lot of E-Sports tournaments being conducted all over the world and India too have competed at those marquee events which clearly indicates the potential of e-sports gamers in India so a systematic strategy should be adopted by the respective stakeholder of e-sports in India and they need to market these games on bigger digital platforms along with them they need to aware budding players who are good at playing e spots that they can make a career out of it and earn huge sum of money from this new gaming ecosystem which will increase in India in years to come.
